Recently the optical fiber art has seen the development of so-called photonic crystal fibers. These fibers rely on Bragg reflections to propagate light signals and are less sensitive to microbending than conventional optical fibers. Such photonic fibers have been the subject of several recent US Patents. See, for instance, U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,243,522 B1; 6,301,420 B1; and 6,334,017 B1. Little or no attention has been paid, however, to providing coatings that suitably protect the photonic crystal fibers' strength and integrity while preserving advantages that photonic crystal fibers provide, such as the resistance to microbending.